


Belated Option

by bigblueboxat221b



Series: How Does Your Marriage Work? [7]
Category: Come From Away - Sankoff & Hein
Genre: Diane POV, Don't copy to another site, F/M, In Gander, Musicals, Screech In (Come From Away)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 10:01:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20172397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigblueboxat221b/pseuds/bigblueboxat221b
Summary: Diane kisses the fish. But if she'd had another option, who knows what might have happened?





	Belated Option

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: This is not RPF  
While Nick and Diane in the musical are based on real people, this story is set strictly in the fictional representation of them in the musical, ‘Come From Away’. I haven’t done any research into their personal lives, and anything further than what is canon in the musical is completely made up, with the exception of some geographical details. This is not intended to represent the real life couple in any way, their thoughts, attitudes or actions. It’s just my brain saying, ‘what if?’, as it does to every story that resonates with me.

Diane looked around the Legion. It was full to bursting, the air ringing with a dozen accents talking and laughing. The atmosphere was the kind of happy you get when people decompress. Not forced, exactly, but there was an edge to it that alcohol could only smooth out so far.

Regardless, it was better than sitting in the shelter, wondering what was happening in the rest of the world. Some people still wanted to watch the news all day; Diane couldn’t bear it. She’d walked restlessly up and down the town and their lookouts, needing to get out and do something just so she would be tired enough to sleep at night. Her brain was still processing everything, and she had a certain sense of change within herself that still lacked definition. Something was different, but she didn’t know exactly what yet.

When someone came around saying they were opening up the Legion that night, Diane’s immediate response was to decline. She wasn’t really a drinking kind of person; standing in a bar was not something she usually did. But as the kind man explained to Nick where the Legion was, Diane had a realisation. Nobody knew her here. Not a single person. She could be whoever she wanted to be.

And maybe tonight she wanted to be the kind of woman who would go down to a bar for a drink.

“Do you think you’ll go?” Nick asked.

“You know, I think I will,” Diane replied. She looked up at him. “Are you coming?”

“It’s not really-” Nick began.

“Oh come on,” Diane interrupted, swatting at his arm. “One drink.”

“Fine,” Nick said, capitulating surprisingly easily. “I’ll go if you’re going.”

“I’m going,” Diane told him with a grin.

“I’ll buy you a beer, then,” Nick said.

And now they were here, and she’d drunk the first beer and now, recklessly, a second. Her head was spinning a little, but she was having a good time. Nick was beside her, as he’d been all night except when he was getting their drinks. They’d talked a little, as much as they could over the noise of the bar, but mostly watched the entertainment develop as the time passed. A bunch of locals had pulled out some instruments and started playing what sounded like sea shanties, and a small dance floor opened up. Groups of locals were dancing and singing, and some of the visitors were trying to learn the dancing, to general appreciation and laughter.

“Let’s make these people honorary Newfoundlanders!” someone roared. The locals cheered.

Diane looked up at Nick. “What do you think he means by that?” she said.

“I have no idea,” Nick replied. He looked quite alarmed, so she took his hand, and the expression changed to surprise. A beat passed, and his fingers tightened around her hand. She smiled as warmth bloomed in her chest. She was almost entirely sure it had nothing to do with the beer.

The same man stood up, standing on a chair and asking for a general quiet down of the festivities so he could explain what the ceremony was for and roughly how it worked. Diane felt her mouth widen in a smile. This was the kind of thing she would never in a million years have considered before she’d arrived here, but now…what the heck?

“Us!” she cried, when he asked for volunteers. She pulled Nick forward with her. “We want to be Newfoundlanders!”

Nick groaned, but followed her, his fingers clenching around hers as they joined the group. They found a place in the line, accepting yellow hats and shot glasses along with their fellow inductees. Nick’s eyes barely left her face; Diane knew because she was watching Nick, too. It was a heady feeling, recognising this thing that was developing between them and being bold enough to face it.

“Where are you from?” their host asked.

“Texas-” Diane started, but he cut her off before she could continue.

“What part of Texas you from, buddy?” he asked Nick.

“No, I’m from Texas, he’s from England,” Diane explained, grinning at Nick’s flustered expression.

“Well how does that work?”

“How does what work?” Nick asked.

“How does your marriage work, with her in Texas and you in England?”

Diane burst out laughing. “We’re not married.” She could see Nick emphatically shaking his head beside her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were married!” he said.

Diane grinned at him. “Nope,” she said.

“Well would you like to be?”

The alcohol buzzed in her system as Diane answered, “Well why not?!”

Nick’s eyes grew wide as she and the host laughed, and he moved onto the next pair in line. A woman was following him, tipping some kind of dark golden liquor into their shot glasses; Diane heard snippets of a story about a soldier drinking it and howling. She raised her glass to Nick, wondering what the stuff actually was.

“It’s screech,” someone told her.

Before she could do more than glance at Nick, the whole bar was counting, and she held his gaze as they counted.

“1…2…3!”

Everyone tipped their heads back and drank the screech in one go.

“Christ!”

“Urgh!”

“Jaysus!”

“Merde!”

Diane heard a dozen reactions; her own throat was burning, but it wasn’t the most unpleasant thing she’d ever drunk.

“That’s horrendous,” Nick said, gasping.

“It’s delicious,” she told him, licking her lips.

“Really,” Nick said, and she had no idea why he was smirking at her.

Someone came around and collected their shot glasses; Diane couldn’t remember what came next until their host reappeared with a very large, very dead fish.

“This is a freshly caught Newfoundland cod!” he announced. “And if you want to become a Newfoundlander, you’re going to have to give her a smooch!”

“Kiss the fish!” the locals called, amongst cat calls and hoots of approval as he worked his way down the line. More than one person hesitated, but everyone kissed her.

“Urgh, I’m not kissing a fish!” Nick declared as the fish was presented to him.

“Come on!” Diane urged him. “I will if you do!”

“Oh alright!” he said, kissing the fish and shuddering hard.

Diane looked at it. It was disgusting, and about as far from her circle of comfort as she could imagine.

“Come on, you’ve got to kiss the fish, it’s a vital part of the ceremony!” the host urged her.

“I did!” Nick reminded her, his eyes alight as he watched her.

Diane hesitated again, then closed her eyes and leaned forward.

It was exactly as disgusting as she thought, and she wiped her mouth on the backs of her hands. “Yuck!” she said.

“We’re Newfoundlanders now!” Nick told her.

“I’m not sure it was worth it,” she told him, screwing up her nose. His look was affectionate, and she basked in it, beaming at him. The moment stretched like warm taffy until they had to look away. Diane wondered what might have happened if the noise in the bar hadn’t intervened.

They watched the host move down the line, until he reached a couple near the end. One of the men kissed the fish, but his partner balked at it. The cheers of encouragement grew almost deafening, until the man with the fish waved one hand in the air.

“Alright,” he said, his voice booming over the hushed crowd, “I’ll give you a choice. Either you kiss the fish, or you kiss this Englishman you’re not married to!”

An amused ‘oooh!’ rose from the crowd.

The young man flushed red, turning to the Englishman beside him. The other man, still wiping the fish from his mouth, shrugged, and the crowd exploded into cheers as their lips met in a brief kiss. The cheering continued for a moment then the noise melted into general excited chatter, the newly minted Newfoundlanders still proudly wearing their hats and wiping their mouths.

“Another round of screech for our newest Newfoundlanders!” the host shouted.

“I don’t think I should have another,” Diane said to Nick. She could feel herself swirling nicely from the alcohol, the effect dulling her worries without pushing her into recklessness. The evening seemed to be developing in interesting directions, and the last thing she wanted was to be too drunk to remember it.

“Me either,” he replied.

They both declined when the bottle came around, watching with a smile as the room counted them in again. It became clear that more people wanted to take part in the ceremony; the hats were passed over to new people, and Nick and Diane found themselves at the back of the crowd.

“I could do with some air,” Diane said over the crowd.

Nick nodded, and they turned, winding through the people to the door.

The air outside was cool. Diane hadn’t realised how warm it was inside. Maybe that was the alcohol, too.

“Wow,” she said as they turned together to walk slowly down the road in the direction of the shelter.

“That certainly was an experience,” Nick agreed.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had that many drinks at once,” Diane said. She moved a little closer, slipping her hand in Nick’s without a second thought. That was definitely the alcohol. The urge to do it, the small, easy marker of affection while they walked, had been growing stronger but she’d resisted. Tonight, it was so easy. Her mind felt clearer, as though her doubts and fears had been gently floated away by the beer and screech.

“It wasn’t that many,” Nick replied. “Three beers, I think?”

“And the screech,” Diane told him.

“And the screech,” Nick agreed. He shuddered.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Diane told him. They’d reached the Academy, but Diane didn’t feel like going inside yet. Instead she followed the building until they came to the low wall separating the playground from the path. It was cold, but she sat on the stone, hoping Nick would follow.

He did, sitting close enough that his knee was pressed against hers. It was warmer than the stone, comfortingly solid.

“I don’t think I’ll be letting you volunteer me for that again,” Nick said.

“I don’t think you’ll have to,” Diane said. “Once a Newfoundlander, always a Newfoundlander, right?”

“I suppose so,” Nick replied. He glanced at her before looking down at their hands, still joined and resting on their knees. “Do you think the couple who kissed each other instead of the fish are considered Newfoundlanders?”

“I don’t know,” Diane replied. It felt like a question with a purpose. She wondered if Nick was angling towards something. Her heart beat a little faster, just in case.

“That fellow who was in charge says they are,” Nick said. “I suppose he’d know.”

“Mmm,” Diane hummed. Her heart was thumping now, for some reason, but she didn’t think too much about it. The silence was somehow soft, as they sat together.

“We’ll never have to kiss the fish again,” Nick pointed out.

“They didn’t have to at all,” Diane said. “I didn’t know there was an option.”

Nick’s thumb, which had been sweeping slowly back and forward across her knuckles, stilled. He didn’t say anything for a long, drawn out moment, and Diane wondered if she’d said the wrong thing. Was she seeing something that didn’t exist?

“Neither did I,” he said finally.

Diane’s heart thumped, still steady but fast. What she wanted to do was clear, and her hand was blessedly steady as she raised it, bringing Nick’s along with it. His knuckles were cold against her lips, and she fancied the shiver through Nick’s torso was a result of her breath across his skin.

“If I’d hesitated a second more,” Diane said, his hand still close to her mouth, “he might have offered me the same choice.”

Nick didn’t speak. She could see him, just, in her peripheral vision; he was very still, turned towards her. Waiting, she thought. Waiting for her. Vaguely, she wondered if he thought she was a little too affected by the alcohol for him to make the first move. Or perhaps his English reserve was coming to the fore.

Either way, it was up to her.

“Nick,” she said, turning to face him more fully.

She met his eyes, marvelling at her own courage.

“I’d rather have kissed you,” she told him quietly.

“Well, I hope so,” he murmured, and the small moment of humour lifted the gravity that had fallen over them.

Smiling, Diane reached up, curling her hand around the back of Nick’s neck. He moved with her, the slight pressure superfluous as he leaned forward to meet her in the middle. His lips on hers were soft, a gentle press that promised more, a deeper longing that matched her own.

It’s not just me, Diane thought dimly, the exultant realisation echoing through her head. He feels it too.

The _maybe_ in her heart blossomed out into a _yes, this could be something_.


End file.
